Super Duper Cadbury on Cadbury Cupcakes

These are the kind of cakes my dad likes to describe as 'a heart attack on a plate', which to the rest of us just means a big treat! They certainly don't last long in my house, here's how to make them...

For The Cupcakes You Will Need...

100g (4oz) softened butter

150g (5oz) self-raising flour

3 tablespoons milk

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons coco powder

To make the cupcakes simply whisk together all of the above ingredients, spoon the mixture evenly between 12 muffin cases and bake in the oven (180 degrees/Fan 160 degrees/Gas mark 4) for 20-25 minutes. Once baked, transfer the cupcakes onto a wire cooling rack and leave the to cool completely before decorating.

For The Chocolate Buttercream Icing You Will Need...

100g (4oz) softened butter

225g (8oz) sifted icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coco powder

Milk

For the buttercream icing, whisk together the above ingredients. The milk can be added if the icing is too solid or you are struggling to get the ingredients to combine (it also helps to reduce the mess of icing sugar flying all over the place!).

Now, spread a good amount of the icing onto each cupcakes. To decorate my 'Cadbury on Cadbury' cupcakes I used...

Chunks of Cadbury Dairy Milk

Cadbury Wispa Bites

Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons

I piled on a mix of each of these goodies onto each cupcake, pushing them slightly into the buttercream icing. I then drizzled some melted chocolate on top of each of the cupcakes to finish.

DONE!

Hope you enjoyed this recipe, feel free to try different variations on these cupcakes, maybe try using different toppings, whatever you like best and can get your hands on, or you could try baking plain vanilla cupcakes and decorate with vanilla buttercream icing and white chocolate toppings!

Why I Collect Vinyl Records

Over the last two years I have accumulated a reasonable amount of vinyl records, enough I'd say to call a 'collection'. It isn't the biggest collection in the world nor the smallest (shall we say more than 100 but rather less than 1000), and it's fair to say I'm sold on vinyl.  Vinyl sales are surging, and though they make up only a tiny percentage of overall music sales, what is significant is that vinyl record sales have grown at such pace at a time when other physical formats are in a state of great decline. It's more expensive than other (more accessible) formats, it's fragile, some might say it's dated, so why have vinyl records become my music medium of choice, and the choice of increasingly more people?

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Recently, I had been struggling to move forward with a number of projects that once excited me. They seemed to go stale and I felt as if I had come to the end of each strand of inspiration, the projects became a struggle and not a joy, I was scraping at the barrel and nothing seemed to get me out of the rut of running from it. When art becomes a chore it shows in the finished product, so here are my top 5 tips for when art becomes a chore, hopefully they will help you get excited about your projects again and get the ball rolling.